I think that's one of the maybe under-discussed aspects of process - the difference between a good writing day and a bad… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think it's basically the same game, although with a public figure like [Donald] Trump I think you are bound to consider… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think when you see [Donald] Trump in person, my reaction is you kind of enjoy it. It's kind of an enjoyable… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Maybe you could even think 100,000 people are inside each human being. And you drop a novel on that person, and a… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
While I'm doing [writing], I don't feel it.I don't think that's a failing. I think it's just a feature. Like, a feature… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I started out in engineering. I was a geophysical engineer. Throughout the course of my life I've done a lot of strange… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think something that I can't name about our media has made us move away from that kind of specificity and that… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
We all think we know what happens after death. But maybe it's going to be not only weird but also dorky and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
My mind has an obsessive, neurotic quality, but I also have a very hard work ethic. I know that a lot of… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think we need leadership that can gently and with affection remind us of what we Americans mostly agree upon: civility, kindness,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I have been married to my wife, Paula, for 25 years. We have wonderful kids. Things are - it's been a really… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
If you really think back to the great writers, there's a lot of happiness in Tolstoy; there's a lot of love, there's… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the path for a young writer might be one that says, "I have to accept myself, this is what I… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think that feels like it to me. I mean whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
When somebody you've known for 20 years, and with whom you have a full context, winks at you or whatever, it can… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I was thinking about the legacy of ghosts in fiction, and specifically the moral power of those Dickensian ghosts. Because a ghost… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Some of our writers are starting to incorporate elements of social media, etc. in the work itself, which is all for the… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm not thinking in any big thematic or conceptual terms - especially in this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] when I was… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The main thing a childhood in the Church did for me, I think, was set up the universe as a moral system.… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Every writer has to find the thing to keep her eye on about which she has strong opinions. That's of course deeply… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm not thinking much about overall themes or preoccupations or anything like that. Instead I'm just trusting that, if I'm working hard,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
This - where we are now - is where a culture gets to, when it has chosen, for many years, banality over… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think about how I conceptualize the audience. The trick is that they've got to be smarter and more worldly than me.… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
In art, and maybe just in general, the idea is to be able to be really comfortable with contradictory ideas. In other… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
As for "toothy kindness" - I think all traditions are full of this sort of tough kindness. If someone is on a… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
That's one of the reasons I take a lot of consolation in fiction. You have years to work on it. I think… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Some of Buddhist texts say that, in the moment after you die, you think of New Jersey and you go to New… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The artist's job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery. To intuit it, and recognize that the story-germ has some… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
There were several points where I would kind of turn to the book and say, "Get thee behind me." I don't think… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I sometimes think that I can't do the bigger thing that [Zadie Smith] do so beautifully, as in Swing Time, with so… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
If you have a friend, what's the best way you can experience her beauty? It's to really accept her. She's weird in… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I don't think much new ever happens. Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I always cheerfully say, "Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it'll do," but I do… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think that tri [to Ram Bahadur Bomjon] was the first time I'd even seen something that made me think, or really… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Success is like a mountain in front of you that keeps growing. If you're not careful, it will take up your whole life. — George Saunders Copy Share
“Wow wow wow is all I can say! Remember how I always buy lunchtime Scratch-Off ticket? Have I said? Maybe did not say? Well,… — George Saunders Copy Share
“None of it was real; nothing was real. Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear. These and all things started as nothing, latent within… — George Saunders Copy Share
“We must see God not as a Him (some linear rewarding fellow) but an IT, a great beast beyond our understanding, who wants something… — George Saunders Copy Share
America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please,… — George Saunders Copy Share
In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is, actually, not… — George Saunders Copy Share
Whatever your supposed politics are - left, right - if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion… — George Saunders Copy Share
“A Clinton staffer tells me his theory. Think about Frank Sinatra, he says: born to sing. Think about Willie Mays: born to play ball.… — George Saunders Copy Share
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish. — George Saunders Copy Share
“You were torturing a cat," she says. "With a freaking prod." "A prod I built myself in metal shop," he says. "But of course… — George Saunders Copy Share
“Rachel got up and did this happy little shuffle, like she was some cheerful farmer chick who'd just stepped outside to find the hick… — George Saunders Copy Share
What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy… — George Saunders Copy Share
What good the prophet in the wilderness may do is incremental and personal. It's good for us to hear someone speak the irrational truth.… — George Saunders Copy Share
We're in the transition between birth and death. But the one that people often know about is the transition between the moment of death… — George Saunders Copy Share
You don't want to be that parent - the one who dresses his kid in a cloth sack when all the other kids are… — George Saunders Copy Share